Ryan Andrew Cochrane (born October 29, 1988) is a Canadian freestyle distance swimmer. Cochrane is an Olympic silver and bronze medalist as well as the reigning double gold medalist from the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships. He is also the two-time defending Commonwealth Games champion in the 400-metre and 1,500-metre having won both medals in 2010 and 2014. He holds six World Championship medals from the 800 m and 1500 m, this also makes Cochrane Canada's all-time leading medalist for a swimmer at the World Aquatics Championships. For the year of 2010, Cochrane was named the Canadian male swimmer of the year at the 2010 Big Splash Awards Gala in Toronto.[1]

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As a sixteen-year-old Cochrane competed at the 2005 Canada Games for British Columbia. In those games he won five medals including two gold in the 800 and 1,500 m freestyle events.[2] He rose to prominence in the Canadian sporting and aquatic world when he competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics starting in the 400 m freestyle. There he finished ninth in the heats with a Canadian record time of 3:44.85 and failed to qualify for the final. Cochrane also competed in the 1500 m freestyle where he briefly held the Olympic record after swimming a time of 14:40.84 in the heats. This record was soon broken by previous record holder Grant Hackett, who swam a time of 14:38.92.[3] He qualified in second position for the final, and won the bronze medal on August 17.[4] It was the first Olympic medal for a Canadian swimmer since the 1996 Summer Olympics. It was the first medal for Canada in the 1500m freestyle in 88 years.[5]

At the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India Cochrane won Canada's first gold medal of those games in the 400 m freestyle during the first day of competition.[6] Cochrane also became the first Canadian man in 72 years to win gold in the 400 m freestyle at the Commonwealth Games.[6] He then went on to win another gold medal at those games, this time in the 1500 m freestyle.

Cochrane next competed at the 2011 World Aquatics Championships where he opened up with a fifth place finish in the 400 m freestyle. Next up was one of his medal hopeful events in the 800 m freestyle where he lowered his Canadian record to 7:41.86. However this was only good enough for second, as despite staying close to the hometown favourite of Shanghai, Sun Yang ultimately took the gold for China.[7] Of the silver medal Cochrane said that "The goal was to win but I'm happy to progress from the last two years. It shows that I'm in it. I have a little more work to do to catch Sun Yang but I'm not out of it by any means."[8]

He next competed in the 1500 m freestyle in Shanghai where he again finished second behind Sun who swam to a world record time. Of a second finish behind Sun, Cochrane could only say that "He shows that he's had that much more base-work training and he can get to that world record, which is fantastic. I think it's great, especially for the distance events because everyone's been talking about this world record year after year and there's more pressure that's built up...He's showed amazing stroke and amazing ability."[9]

The 2012 Summer Olympics began with Cochrane competing on the first day of competition in the 400 metre freestyle. There Cochrane won his heat and qualified in the last spot for the final. However after Park Tae-Hwan's disqualification was overturned, Cochrane was pushed out of the final and missed swimming in it by 1/100th of a second.[10] He next entered his signature event the 1500 m where he qualified through the heats in third place. In the final Cochrane managed to outswim Oussama Mellouli for the silver medal and achieved it in a personal best time.[11] With his second medal at his second consecutive Olympics, according to media such as the CBC this cemented Cochrane as Canada's pillar athlete to build its swimming team around for the future as he declared that he would try and swim for Canada at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.[12]

The post London Olympic period saw Cochrane's first real test arrive at the 2013 World Aquatics Championships in Barcelona. He swam in the 400 m and posted the second fastest time in qualifying earning him one of the centre lane spots beside Yang. As the Chinese swimmer again pulled ahead in a long-distance freestyle Cochrane found himself in a dogfight for second through fourth with the American and Japanese swimmers, despite holding a third position, he was unable to reel in the American and was just out touched by these swimmers at the wall. in the 800 m freesyle with Yang again far ahead, there was now a four way race for second through fifth. This time Cochrane achieved a medal but was beaten at the wall again by an American swimmer, despite this Cochrane achieved his Canadian tying record fifth medal (with Brent Hayden) at the World Aquatics Championships with the bronze he earned in the 800.[13]

Cochrane would inevitably break Hayden's record in the 1500 m race. In this event he avoided the three and four way races that he had found himself in the shorter events and was instead in a familiar duel with Yang. Though in contrast to past 1,500's this time Cochrane took a different approach the race where the two interchangeably took the lead over alternating 100 metres, at one point Cochrane led by 0.30 seconds though in the last 100 Yang again pulled away and finished for gold. With the victory and new Canadian record Cochrane still said that he left some work on the table and hoped to progress further, "This week was filled with ups and downs. I had expectations of myself that weren't met earlier on but I was pretty proud of my races later in the week so I'm going to take that going forward. Just to get on the podium twice is fantastic but I think I have that many more dreams of being that much better next time."[14]

Glasgow, Scotland was the location for the 2014 Commonwealth Games where Cochrane looked to defend both of his titles in the 400 m and 1500 m events. Cochrane won the 400 by half a second and after tying up after 1200 m in the 15 Cochrane wound up successfully defending this title by a safe margin as well. He stated that he believed these were one of his last big Games and knowing that he could count his big races on one hand pushed through the pain to the repeat double.[15]